Venue

Organizer

Free admission and exclusive for THELMA members, listen to a Q&A talk and learn about her process, inspiration, and execution of her work. Cash bar and snacks available.

In Claude Cahun’s monologue “Helen the Rebel”, the narrative of Helen of Troy is reimagined and retold. Rather than existing as a passive object of desire, Cahun’s Helen collaborates with her husband Menelaus to orchestrate the Trojan War. Her renowned beauty is the result of a training process. Helen relates instructions from Menelaus on how to become beautiful: “. . . sit comfortably in a darkened room and think of nothing. Just that, every day, for a few minutes – gradually and indefinitely increasing the time”. This project casts an oblique eye at subjects homely and humble, extravagant and decorative, and to the biological forces that create transformation in organic life forms.